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Climate change creates security challenge 'more complex than Cold War'
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| 30 January 2007 |
By Ben Vogel, Editor of Janes.com
Climate change is creating the most difficult security problem since the Cold War, according to a senior UK foreign policy official.
Speaking during the 'Climate Change: The Global Security Impact' conference, on 24 January, at the Royal United Services Institute, John Ashton, the UK Foreign Secretary's Special Representative for Climate Change, said: "There is every reason to believe that as the 21st century unfolds, the security story will be bound together with climate change."
He added: "The last time the world faced a challenge this complex was during the Cold War." Yet the stakes this time are even higher, because the enemy now "is ourselves, the choices we make".
Speakers at the conference stressed that the effects of climate change are not only negative in themselves, but may also exacerbate existing areas of political and social tension.
As an example, Ashton mentioned that recent climate change was a factor in the Darfur conflict's "complex roots". Rainfall in northern Darfur had declined by almost 40 per cent over the last century, creating increasing competition for water between previously co-existing peoples.
In a similar vein, Sir Crispin Tickell, the former UK Permanent Representative to the UN, highlighted the environmental factors behind societal collapse. The genocidal inter-ethnic Rwandan conflict in 1994, he argued, stemmed partly from a population increase set against a background of land degradation and drought.
More resource conflicts may arise in the future. Another speaker, Professor John Mitchell, the chief scientist at the UK Met Office, forecast that the coming decades will see a 30 per cent increase in severe drought. Prof Mitchell added that Africa, which is predicted to experience a 2-5°C temperature increase as the 21st century unfolds, will experience increased desertification, water stress and disease.
Ashton also cited the Indian government's recent announcement that it intends to build an 8 ft-high barbed wire fence for the length of its 2,500-mile frontier with Bangladesh. Delhi's intention, he added, is partly to prevent migration from Bangladesh as rising sea levels brought about by "catastrophic climate change" are forecast to inundate the low-lying country.
One academic described such defensive measures as "a 'close the castle gates' phenomenon that can easily slip into a 'barbarian at the gates' mentality", which would be both counterproductive and lead to mounting radicalisation.
In the unstable Middle East, meanwhile, Prof Mitchell described a future of water stress, soil erosion and the accelerated loss of arable land.
Hugh Miall, a professor of international relations at the University of Kent, referred to the "massive potential dislocation" that rising sea levels could bring to delta regions in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, and Nigeria. "At the same time, a drying out of continental interiors will lead to migration and tension." Although he added that climate change will have a "very variable impact", he cited forecasts showing that in Africa, Asia and Latin America, most economic groups will suffer significant drops in income.
"Climate change is a security issue because if we don't deal with it, people will die and states will fail," Ashton concluded.
Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University, reinforced this warning by pointing out that the regions likely to be hardest hit by climate change will be those least able to deal with its social and economic consequences.
On the other hand, Prof Miall referred to research showing that 'non-renewables' rather than natural resources lie at the heart of conflicts. "The political and social dimension is crucial," he said. "Scarcity does not inevitably lead to conflict."
Military planners have shown an awareness of the security implications of climate change. In 2006, for example, the UK Ministry of Defence explained its thinking on the matter to officials from the US Center for Naval Analysis. The US Department of Defense has also published scenarios for the period 2010-30 that examine the potential effects of climate change.
Yet as Ashton pointed out, defence and security planners must face a paradox when assessing their responses to the problem.
Most security threats in today's world are amenable to some extent to a "hard power" or conventional reaction, he said, and demand will rise for such responses to climate change-related security problems. "But there is no hard power solution to climate change - you cannot force your neighbour to change its carbon emissions at the barrel of a gun."
Sir Crispin Tickell urged a more intelligent use of international institutions. The UN Security Council will probably have to deploy more peacekeeping forces or delegate authority to regional organisations such as the African Union (AU), he said, although he was not encouraged by the AU's performance in Darfur.
"Looking ahead, I'm afraid we seem to be in for a bumpy ride," he concluded. "I can't hold out very much. We need a bit of leadership."
Prof Rogers was particularly critical of the response of the developed world. He described as "woefully inadequate" the UK government's target to cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2050, and also berated Prime Minister Tony Blair for being "fixated on the War on Terror" in his international policies and resorting to hard power to solve global security problems.
The next 10 years will be very important in dealing with the problem of climate change, Prof Rogers concluded, but there is a danger that policy-makers involved with the international security aspects of climate change will "regard their priority as keeping the lid on things".
© 2007 Jane's Information Group